Consumers of counterfeit branded products may be dupes or they may be shrewd shoppers, but they are also communicators; people who demonstrate literacy in the meanings attached to certain symbols in the marketplace both of goods and ideas.

Hitchens often remarks here on his being a late bloomer, and so it is that some will see the core of Hitch-22 as the story of the author’s inner journey in adulthood from firebrand '60s campus radical to geezery Tory of the Anglo-American variety.

For a decade and a half, Steve Hughes has published Stupor, a zine that chronicles life in the age of diminished expectations. The newest issue was done in collaboration with international art star (and Björk main squeeze) Matthew Barney.